


Ex Astris Gloria

by JoeHundredaire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Crossover, F/F, F/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeHundredaire/pseuds/JoeHundredaire
Summary: When the true nature of the Veil of Death is finally discovered, Harry and Luna embark on a journey unlike anything they could have possibly imagined. An authorized reimagining of Lightning among the Stars. "fuck this is good! and fun! I don't want to read the story this is based on because nothing shall distract me from this!" - papiliokaze





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lightning among the Stars](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/349017) by Leonineus. 



> Title: Ex Astris Gloria  
> Author: JoeHundredaire  
> Rating: R/FR18  
> Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the _Harry Potter_ universe. Wish they were mine so I could do increasingly nonsensical things to them and watch my bank account get steadily larger, but sadly not mine. BioWare owns _Mass Effect_ , its sequels, its characters, its worlds, and all related concepts. And Disney and Pixar own their lovely ladies. Not mine, don't sue, et cetera and so forth.  
> Summary: When the true nature of the Veil of Death is finally discovered, Harry and Luna embark on a journey unlike anything they could have possibly imagined.  
> Joe's Note: By now, people should really know better than to go 'if you think you can do better, do it'. Because I just take that as a challenge, and challenges are meant to be accepted. To clear some of the foul air floating around the recent chapters of his fic, I am one of people - if not THE person - who tore apart a half-dozen major holes in _Lightning among the Stars_ by Leonineus. He was then dumb enough to post screenshots of our private conversations to a fiction group we were both a member of, at which point I degraded him further for being a whiny bitch about it and then others tossed in their two cents. He threw up his hands and told me to do better if I could before taking his lengthy sulk. So I am.  
>  Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the _Mass Effect_ universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

Oh, the difference that a decade could make.

That was the thought running through Harry Potter's mind as he deftly navigated the almost labyrinthine halls of the Department of Mysteries, making his way toward the Death Chamber. As a fifth year, he'd stumbled upon the chamber - and the veil within - while sneaking into the Ministry with his friends. Nowadays, he was an Unspeakable and being well paid to come in each day and prod at the thing. Well, prod it in between helping his peers untangle any number of other mysterious magical items that had turned up during post-war raids of Voldemort's safe houses.

Oh, the difference that a decade could make.

A decade ago, he'd been coming off his recently failed relationship with Cho Chang and wondering why girls had to be so contrary and downright confusing. These days, he… still couldn't make heads or tails of how the female mind worked, if he was honest with himself. That probably had something to do with why he'd been married - and divorced - twice in a decade. The first time had been to Ginny Weasley, and it had been an unmitigated disaster. While superficially similar enough, they turned out to have very different ideas of where a relationship should go - namely, the fact that he was hoping to settle down and raise a child or three while she considering buying a crup together to be too serious of a commitment - as well as differing opinions on a number of small things that added up after awhile. Taking Ron and Hermione's advice about how 'opposites attract', on the other hand, had led to his marriage to Daphne Greengrass. The less said about those three years of his life, the better.

He'd lost a sizable portion of his wealth in that particular split, but it didn't really bother Harry. It was all blood money as far as he was concerned, dumped in his lap after good men and women died to protect him from his childish mistakes and Dumbledore's machinations. He still had enough to live on if he chose to leave the Ministry, he still had Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and he still had his health and magic. That was good enough for him.

And while Harry still didn't understand how the female mind worked? That didn't really seem to matter when it came to his current relationship, because he was pretty sure that nobody knew how his newest fiancée's mind worked. Including her father, who was strangely amenable to the idea of his daughter dating the man who had gotten the family home blown up during the war. The fact that they - and Hermione - worked together in the Department of Mysteries meant that Harry didn't have to hide anything from her, and his long hours at work were spent with her. Between that and the bloody spectacular sex, Harry had high hopes that the third time would be the charm.

Now if only they could figure out what the damnable Veil of Death was actually meant for…

* * *

When Harry finally entered the Death Chamber, exactly thirty seconds before his shift was due to start just as he had every day for the last six years, Hermione was already seated beside the Veil, waving her wand at the stone arch while simultaneously dictating to a charmed quill that scribbled away on a nearby notepad. Harry allowed himself a moment to marvel at her multitasking capabilities before descending to the center of the pit, making sure to circle around and come at her from where she could see him out of the corner of her eye rather than risk spooking her. "So, two questions. One: what's so fascinating this morning? And two: is that the same shirt that you were wearing yesterday?"

"Yes, fine, you caught me. I've been here all night. But it's for a good reason." Looking up from her work, Hermione met Harry's gaze with sparkling - albeit bloodshot - eyes. "I think I've finally cracked the secret of the veil. Or at least cracked the secret of the secret of the veil." Considering that if she was right, Hermione would have accomplished in a matter of years what entire teams couldn't do over the course of their natural lives? She definitely had Harry's attention. "Just out of curiosity, I used a bog standard miner's charm on the arch. I thought maybe we'd find out there was something inside it; that it was a giant wand or something along those lines. But while I was wrong, it brought my attention back to something that we've ignored because we were told they're useless."

Harry leaned in as Hermione turned back to the arch, tapping the tip of her wand against a series of lines that had been carefully carved into the stone. "Runes. Elder Futhark at that. And it's not that they're useless, at least according to Croaker, but there's no use in trying to translate them because the stone is so weathered that you can't get a clean reading of the runes to work from."

Nodding rapidly, Hermione let out an uncharacteristic giggle - which let Harry know exactly how sleep deprived his friend was - before hopping up out of her chair and grabbing Harry by the wrist. She dragged him across the front of the arch, tapping her wand against another set of runes, and then circled around to the back of that side of the arch and did it a third time. "None of the runes are pristine, so no one set is usable for translation. But… but! They're all the same. So it's just a matter of writing down all the runes and overlapping them to create one complete copy. Or rather, it was. I've already moved on to the translation stage. Which is slow going, since long dead North Germanic dialects are hardly my area of expertise."

"Hermione? Admitting that something isn't her area of expertise?" Harry looked back over his shoulder and smiled as he watched his fiancée descend the steps that lined the perimeter of the Death Chamber. Luna Lovegood offered him a wink even as Hermione let out a huff of exasperation, the blonde gently scratching her nails down the back of the crumple-horned snorkack she had cradled against her chest. "I do believe this is one of the signs of the apocalypse. Somewhere between Ronald managing to chew with his mouth closed and Molly Weasley not sound condescending when she talks to you."

Rolling her eyes, Hermione released her grip on Harry and made her way back over to where her notepad and quill were waiting… and then muttered something distinctly uncomplimentary under her breath as she scratched out several lines. "I do not need that going into the official archives, thank you very much. And while I may not know everything, I did manage to help you find that snorkack." Luna opened her mouth to argue, only to be cut off by Hermione. "Ah ah ah. You wouldn't have found it without me and you know it. So shush."

Luna pouted as she snuggled up against Harry's side, raising the snorkack into the air so she could look it in all four eyes. "Don't you listen to her, Wednesday. I managed to breed you all by myself… from the two snorkacks she helped me find. But still! You're all mine! Aren't you? Aren't you?" The snorkack regarded her impassively for a few seconds, nose twitching, and then turned so it could sink its teeth into her right thumb. "Ouch! Why you little-"

Doing his best not to laugh at his fiancée's misfortune - mainly because he had absolutely no desire to end up banished to his very uncomfortable couch for a night or three - Harry turned his attention back to Hermione and her frenetic scribbling. "So I'm guessing 'how does it work?' won't be answered for a while, but do we at least know 'what is it?'. The Ministry has used it to execute people in the past, but I can't belief that was its original purpose. There are so many ways to kill someone that are easier and faster. Why waste the time and energy it took to construct this?"

"Because if it wasn't damaged - or if they'd had Unbreakable Charms back when this was made - it wouldn't kill people. It would teleport them. Through all four dimensions." Waving her wand, Hermione summoned a lump of clay from a nearby cart and pressed it into place against a damaged portion of the arch before transfiguring it to match the stone. With that accomplished, she began carving a set of runes into the unblemished stone, eyes darting back and forth between her notes and her work. "Like I said, I still don't have a decent translation for the writings but I definitely recognize 'space' and 'time' and 'move'. It's a bloody Viking TARDIS is what it is."

Harry exchanged a bemused smile with Luna at the comparison before turning his attention back to the arch. "So then it's bigger on the inside?" Hermione turned away from what she was doing and shot him a mystified look, making Harry sigh. "I have seen _Doctor Who_ , you know. Obviously, or otherwise I'd be needing to ask what a TARDIS is. And so what I want to know is… is there a chance that there's some kind of storage pocket on the other side? Like multi-compartment trunks or your purse. If you undo whatever damage has been done, is Sirius going to be in there? Are there going to be a bunch of really confused Vikings in there? Or is the thing more akin to… say, the stargate than a TARDIS?"

"How do you know about the stargate?"

"The same way that I know about _Doctor Who_ : we've got Sky over at Grimmauld Place now, and Luna and I like to watch some of the sci-fi programming on Sky 1. _Stargate SG-1_ is a particular favorite of Luna's; I'm a bit more fond of _Atlantis_ myself. Can we focus on the question, though?"

Hermione shook her head before turning back to consult her notes. "I honestly don't know. I haven't seen anything in the runes that would indicate a storage function, though, so my hypothesis would be that it's closer to the stargate. The tribe's seiðkona would likely use her own magic to activate the Veil and set a destination, and then the warriors would pass through. It would certainly explain their historical dominance; how do you beat a people who can send reinforcements to five seconds before the battle started?"

Well wasn't that just neat? And if she fixed it, it meant that Harry could send either himself or trusted others to save… nobody. Because the smallest action could cause unforeseen repercussions, and what would happen to the timeline if something they did via the arch got Hermione killed before she could repair it and send people back? Best not to muck with such things, Harry realized. Which was why Time Turners had so many restrictions on them. And… a loud burping noise pulled Harry from his thoughts, and he took a step back as all the runes on the arch flared to life simultaneously. A second later, the tattered black curtain in the middle of the arch started to flutter a bit faster in an invisible breeze. "Hermione? What did you do?"

"I don't know, all I did was…" Trailing off, Hermione's expression became one of horror. "Even you wouldn't be able to push enough magic into the Veil to activate it from a fully inert state. And mixing your own magic into something empowered by others could be catastrophic. Okay, new hypothesis: there was a controlling artifact that allowed a tribe's seiðkona to direct the Veil. Which we don't have. So now that I've fixed the runes, it's turned on and there's no 'pause' button for us to press. Oh dear. What do we do?"

Harry let out a sigh as he drew the Elder Wand and waved it in front of himself, creating a barrier that nullified the slowly growing suction that was already tugging at his clothes. "Get out of here, Hermione. We're going to need you to figure this whole thing out, and you can't if you get pulled through with us." Hermione's eyes lit up in indignation, but Harry slashed his free hand through the air to cut her off. "No! This thing is slowly throttling up to full power; I could feel a difference even in those few seconds before I cast my barrier. So leave us here. Both of us. I can hold a barrier longer than anyone else here and you know it. And if I go through… well, I don't think you'll want to be here if Luna's here and I'm gone. So we'll stay and do what we can. Go tell Croaker. See if there are more pieces to this somewhere. See if there are old records. Pull a Hermione. Make the impossible possible. That's your job. Just like this is ours."

After staring at him for a few seconds, Hermione nodded and dashed forward, pulling him into a tight hug. "I will. I'll fix this, Harry, I swear. Good luck." Despite their occasional collaborations, she wasn't nearly as close to the blonde and so Hermione settled for giving Luna a solemn nod before turning and hurrying her way across the pit and then up the steps to safety.

As soon as she was gone, Harry turned and fired off a series of locking charms at the door before adding a few reinforcing charms to make sure the muggleborn didn't simply blow it off the hinges in an attempt to get back in. After all, while Hermione was a very smart young woman, she was also about to lose a good friend. The last thing he needed was her breaking down and doing something incredibly noble and stupid. That was his job, thank you very much. Once he was sure that he and Luna wouldn't be interrupted, Harry finally slashed his wand and canceled the shield that was holding the growing effects of the now-active arch at bay. "I still can't believe that the only person I know with any real talent for divination cheated his way through four years of the class."

Luna offered a grin and a shrug as she pulled a shrunken baby carrier out of her bag and enlarged it, passing Wednesday off to Harry long enough to slide her arms through the straps and then secure things behind her back. Taking the snorkack back, she pressed a kiss to the top of Wednesday's head before securing her familiar in place against her chest. "Maybe Ronald could See that Professor Trelawney would accept his work and so that's why he did it? And you can't deny that it's right handy. If it wasn't for him, we would have been caught completely off-guard by this."

"I wasn't complaining. Just think it's funny." Harry patted at his pockets, checking to make sure everything was there. Shrunken trunk full of clothes and personal belongings, check. Shrunken trunk full of potions, ingredients, old wands, books, and assorted magical knickknacks, check. Two shrunken trunks full of money, check. One snorkack, secured for transit. Time to get the show on the road. "Do you think he's right about where we're going to end up? On a whole other planet, some time in the future?"

Striding forward confidently, Luna shot a very familiar and very wicked little grin back over her shoulder at Harry. "If we do, I hope there are green-skinned space babes. Or blue ones. I do so like the color blue." Stopping a few inches away from the rapidly fluttering curtain, the blonde spun in place, blew Harry a kiss, and then fell backward through the Veil.

Harry tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. "Merlin save me from adorable hypersexual blondes." Taking a deep breath, he dashed forward and plowed through the Veil, boldly going where no man had - voluntarily - gone before.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joe's Note: As you probably noticed, I've made a whole host of characterization changes. To each their own and all that, but I don't really see the point of mass character assassination especially when they're not going to feature in the plot. And I couldn't even justify Ron because by switching Harry's love interest, he became irrelevant to the first chapter. I also redid Ginny's backstory a bit, because while I can respect a desire to follow Rowling's canon for as long as possible before deviating? I think there are more reasonable ways to split up Harry and Ginny so you can pair Harry with someone new than 'Ginny's a whore'.  
> Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the Mass Effect universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

If there were any 'green-skinned space babes', Harry decided as he sat up with a groan, he hoped that they were nowhere near where he and Luna had ended up. Because wherever they'd managed to land was a truly wretched and disgusting place, and that was coming from a person who had spent years cleaning up after the Dursleys. When an air-freshening charm failed to make a dent in the aroma that had him on the edge of vomiting, Harry switched to a Bubble-Head Charm before slowly climbing to his feet. "Luna?"

"Bubble-Head Charm, if you don't mind?" It took him a moment to spot Luna through the disgusting, greenish smog that was in all likelihood the source of the foul odor, but then Harry fired off the requested spell in her direction. "Oh, that's much better. Thank Merlin you still have your wand." Rising from the ground, Luna did her best to brush her off before revealing why she wasn't trying to clean herself up with magic… or capable of casting her own protection against the disgusting smell. Her wand - her original wand, which she'd spent days searching through Malfoy Manor for after the end of the war - had been snapped in half during their journey from London to… wherever they were. "Please cast the charm on Wednesday, too; I don't want her breathing this mess. We'll save repairing my wand for later. Wherever we are, I doubt it's magical and so running around with our wands out casting spells is probably a terrible idea."

Harry nodded and added some breathing protection to Luna's furred and feathered little friend before looking down at himself. "Can I at least use magic to clean us up since there's nobody else here to see it?"

 "…that would be ever so lovely, yes."

Even with the Bubble-Head Charm keeping the stench at bay, Harry was not at all sad to see the disgusting mess of mixed solids and liquids disappear as he vanished the mess from his clothes. Turning to Luna, he repeated the process before cleaning up Wednesday as best he could. It was only then that he realized that they had an audience… an inhuman audience at that. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, now that Harry thought about it, given Ron had predicted they'd end up on another world as a part of their jump into the future.

But while Harry was familiar with a wide variety of magical beings and beasts, the pack of beings slowly approaching them were unlike anything he had ever seen. It was like someone had crossbred a goblin with a dragon, mated their child with a piranha, enlarged the resulting offspring to human size, and then skinned it alive before sticking on some extra pieces just to make it look even meaner. At the same time, Harry knew from personal experience that not everything that looked intimidating actually was - Hagrid, for instance - and so he forcibly suppressed his instinct to lash out to protect himself and Luna. "Hello?"

Whether or not they could understand him, what emerged from the mouth of the leader of the pack was completely incomprehensible to Harry. Looking to Luna for help merely earned him a shake of her head; despite her greater experience with languages, she was just as helpless here as he was. When one of them drew what looked far too much like a gun for his comfort, though, Harry upgraded the situation from 'potentially dangerous' to 'quite likely life-threatening'. Sliding into cover behind him, Luna brought one hand up to rest between his shoulders as she leaned forward. "I've changed my mind about you running around casting spells, if that's okay with you."

"Yeah." Harry brought the Elder Wand up as he slipped into a combat stance, watching warily as the rest of newcomers drew guns of their own. "I'm pretty sure I'm okay with that."

* * *

While Captain Preitor Gavorn was a turian who was largely content with his lot in life, there was one thing he would have changed if he could: eliminating the regular anti-vorcha patrols he was forced to undertake. While he understood why his boss wanted them deterred before they could even reach his usual post at the front of her club, it didn't make dealing with them on their home turf any safer or easier. For a short time, he'd managed to hire a dedicated vorcha removal team to keep the neighborhood around the club clear, but eventually the funding had been pulled. It was his own fault for offering to cover medical care for those hurt on duty, he'd been told. And so now he was stuck doing the job with his subordinates, instead of dumping it off on disposable mercenaries.

Slowly making his way down one of the back streets that allowed privileged individuals to come and go from Afterlife's VIP section unnoticed, Gavorn was pulled from his thoughts as a handful of vorcha went tumbling through the air in front of him, forcing him to lean backward to avoid getting raked across the face by one's claws. They hit the wall across from the alley they'd come flying out of with a series of dull thuds, slowly sliding their way down to drop to the ground in a pile. As the vorcha at the top of the pile began climbing to its feet, Gavorn reached back over his shoulder and drew his Phaeston, the assault rifle whirring softly as it expanded in his hands. Before he could so much as bark a warning, though, much less take a shot, a bright red bolt of energy slammed into the pile.

The vorcha exploded.

The barrel of Gavorn's rifle dipped as he stared at the bloody smear that had formerly been a half dozen vorcha in disbelief. That… had been no weapon he was familiar with, and he was familiar with a great many thanks to his years working security on Omega. Neither a grenade nor a missile, and while most mass accelerator weapons could be modified with explosive rounds, that didn't explain the size of the explosion… or the red glow. His sense of disbelief only grew when the culprit emerged from the alley: a young human male who appeared to be armed with nothing more than a stick that was glowing at the tip. Trailing behind him was a slender blonde woman who appeared to be unarmed… but who was transporting some sort of bizarre animal in one of the child carriers that Gavorn had sometimes seen human females use to ferry about their young.

Well, Gavorn thought with a sigh, at least it wasn't the Collectors again. Humans were something he knew how to deal with. Raising his free hand, he issued a series of commands to his subordinates via hand signals before bringing his assault rifle back up to point at the human. "Stop right there! What did you do to those vorcha?"

* * *

Well, he was still facing unfamiliar beings armed with futuristic-looking guns but at least these ones seemed more civilized than the last batch. Granted they only seemed defensive rather than aggressive because he was projecting his own human mannerisms onto them, Harry mused, but at least they weren't lunging and trying to bite him. So even if they were aggressive, they were at least a civilized aggressive. That being said? Until he figured out exactly what he was dealing with, he was keeping Luna safely behind him. While she was far from helpless most of the time - and had even saved his arse a few times with her far wider repertoire of spells - all the knowledge in the world couldn't save her as long as her wand was broken.

Running his eyes over the group, Harry noticed something interesting. Despite consisting of at least three species, their armor all matched and their weapons looked similar too. Hmm. He had just killed a bunch of… somethings. Perhaps this was local law enforcement, responding to the situation? If so - and assuming they weren't terribly corrupt - they might even be able to help him and Luna figure out where - and when - they were. There was just one problem. "What did you say? I can't understand you." The armored, avian-like being that seemed to be the leader of the new arrivals spoke again, but its language was just as alien the second time around. "I… don't… understand… you." Getting desperate, Harry tried a gentle wandless legilimency probe toward the being, but found himself running into the same barrier as with verbal communication: a complete lack of comprehension. Its mind was completely foreign to Harry on a level he hadn't experienced even with magical beings from Earth, preventing him from making heads or tails of what he was finding. Something strikingly similar to the word 'aria' seemed to feature regularly and prominently, but what did opera have to do with anything?

After a few more fruitless exchanges between them, the avian being gave up and reached around to attach its weapon to the back of its armor. With its companions covering it, it pressed something that caused a glowing orange construct to materialize around his left forearm. Another poke materialized a keyboard, and then it began typing away at the keys. A decidedly artificial voice emerged that, while no more understandable, was at least recognizable. "Chto vy delayete chtoby te vorka?" Russian, or a similar Slavic language. They were getting closer to something Harry could understand. Then came a phrase in some variety of Chinese - quite possibly a Wu dialect, since it reminded Harry of listening to Su cuss when things went wrong at work - and then finally… "What did you do to those vorcha?"

At least now Harry had a name to go with his attackers. And he was starting to lean more and more toward this group being law enforcement; while the voice was obviously emotionless, the question was a simple interrogative rather than an accusation. Hopefully that meant he wasn't on the verge of having to fight for their lives… again. "Self-defense. I tried to drive them off but they wouldn't stop trying to attack my fiancée and I. I thought maybe giving them a bit of a harder push would put some fear into them, but when they started getting back up…"

"Vorcha are too stupid to feel fear. Or learn things. Putting them down for good is the only way to deal with them." The being's words elicited noises from its companions that were - while not laughter by human standards - unmistakably noises of good humor. One look quelled them, and the leader of the group returned to typing on his glowing arm… computer… thing. "I don't care why you did it. Killing them means six less vorcha I need to take care of. I asked how you did it. I've never seen a weapon like that before."

Evidently Luna had been right in her assumption that areas should be considered non-magical until proven otherwise. So much for his hopes that here in the future, the wizarding world had integrated into society as a whole and magic was now known to the general public. After all, these people clearly knew what humans were… just not what he and Luna were. Harry thought for a moment before deciding on a way to simultaneously deflect the question while finding out more about where they were. "To be fair? I've never seen someone who looks like you before." Someone rather than something, because if there was one thing Harry had learned over the years, it was never to refer to something smart enough to converse with you as a 'thing'.

Except for portraits and mirrors, but that was a whole other kettle of fish.

The question seemed to catch the being off-guard. It stood there staring at Harry for almost a minute, mandibles twitching, and then began typing furiously on his computer. "You've never met a turian before? Or at least seen one of us? Even if you're from some isolated human colony, you would have run into us the moment you set foot on Omega."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Inwardly, Harry was cursing up a storm. While on one hand, he now had a name for one of the three races he was facing… he had evidently just exposed exactly how unusual he and Luna were. Bugger. Maybe he would have been better off admitting to being a wizard? No helping it now, though. Best to keep moving. "Well then, I'm sure just calling you 'turian' would be awfully rude. My name is Harry Potter. My companion's name is Luna Lovegood. And you are..?"

"Captain Gavorn. One of my jobs is to patrol this area and keep the vorcha pushed out of where the civilized beings lived. Or what passes for civilized beings here on Omega." That elicited another round of laughter from Gavorn's associates, making him look back at them and bark out something in his native tongue. Their fun brought to an end, the group drew their own weapons and began spreading out through the area. "Now… I don't know who you are, what you're hiding, how you got here, or why you don't have any kind of translator on you. But since dealing with you is above my pay grade, I'm not even going to try and find out. We're going to see Aria."

And this was why they weren't supposed to read the minds of people who thought in foreign tongues, Harry mused, much less the minds of other species. He'd assumed that Gavorn was a music buff. He'd quite obviously assumed wrong. "And if we don't want to go see 'Aria'?"

Rather unexpectedly, the question just seemed to amuse Gavorn. "You're somehow ignorant of basic facts of life, don't have a translator, probably don't have any money… do you have somewhere better to be?" Point. "Now let's go. Sooner I drop you off, the sooner I can get back to work, and the sooner I can go home to my mate."

With that, conversation came to an abrupt halt as Gavorn turned and walked away. Harry exchanged a look with Luna before giving chase, the blonde easily matching his pace as they followed their guide through the streets of 'Omega'. Whatever - or wherever - that was. "No green-skinned space babes so far, but we do have armored space chickens, lizard people, and T-rex turtles. Oh, and the vorcha. That's got to count for something, yeah?"

"I suppose. I can't wait to get a translator of my own, though; I wonder if the turtle people are as brutish as they look, or if there's more to them than meets the eye. Oh! And there's at least two species of lizard people; I spotted a different kind moving behind Captain Gavorn while you two were talking. None of them really strike my fancy, though, so…" Luna trailed off as her head slowly turned to the right, following the progress of a scantily-clad woman with blue skin and tentacles where her hair should have been. "Well now. That's more like it."

Chuckling, Harry wrapped one arm around Luna's waist and used it to keep her moving both forward and on course as she continued following the blue woman with her eyes. "All in due time, dear. There will be plenty of time for blue-skinned space babes after we deal with this 'Aria' person. Aria. Hmm. Aria. Something about that just screams 'Mediterranean' to me. Do you think this place is run by humans, then?"

Finally giving up on her optical molestation of her first ever space babe, Luna turned her attention forward and then let out a low whistle as Gavorn led them through a pair of sliding metal doors and into a giant club. A giant, three-storied club that was positively teeming with a mixture of human and blue alien women, all of whom were wearing very little while dancing provocatively for the patrons' enjoyment. "If it is, they have amazing taste."

Despite preferring to be a bit more discreet than Luna when it came to his appreciation of the fairer sex, even Harry couldn't keep his attention from wandering as Gavorn led them around the lowest tier of the club. Coming to a halt at the base of a staircase, he signaled for them to stay behind as he ascended a set of steps before turning a corner and disappearing from view. "Just out of curiosity, since you passed through the arch first… did you have any control over our destination?" Luna turned to look at him, arching one fine blonde brow inquiringly. "What? We just so happen to land near a strip club? That's a little suspicious."

"Is it, now?" Smirking, Luna leaned in and nibbled at his neck gently before trailing her lips up to his earlobe. "If I'd been in control, don't you think we would have landed in the dressing room or some such? Perhaps a brothel full of lovely alien ladies?"

Point.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joe's Note: This chapter will touch on the bit of temporal realignment I've done in my version of the story. Even in stories where I've adjusted the timeline of one or both fandoms, I try my best to have a definitive sequence of events to work from. Not only does it come in handy for basics of writing - you can't really refer to someone as 'the older brunette' if you don't know how old everyone is at any given time - but it keeps your characters from accidentally referring to stuff that hasn't happened yet.  
> Dedications & Thanks: Nicolas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, mpop, Riley, bloodylord, Luke, Zachary, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Invernos, Paul, Pat, Warren, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on Patreon, and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing. Additional thanks go to the incomparable LogicalPremise for his amazing set of references covering many untouched facets of the Mass Effect universe, as well as listening to me ramble about ideas for the future of this story.

By the time Gavorn finally returned, Harry was on the verge of giving in to Luna's cajoling and wandering off to explore the club's entertainment. It wasn't like they had anything better to do; he'd already surreptitiously repaired her wand, transferred Wednesday to a carrier on his own back in case Luna did anything impulsive, raised the alien species count to eight - there were also elephantine beings and a four-eyed humanoid species that was extraordinarily fond of sneering at humans - and they'd teamed up to cast every linguistics-related charm they knew between the two of them on passing aliens. That effort met with complete failure, although Harry was reasonably certain that one of the teal-skinned space babes working at the bar could speak English. Hence Luna's desire to go wandering. Well, she wanted to go wandering in that particular direction for altogether different reasons, but the English-speaking space babe made for a good enough excuse.

Without a word, Gavorn reached out and wrapped his talons around Harry's left forearm, pulling it forward so he could force an orange bracelet onto Harry's wrist. As soon as he was released, Harry yanked his arm back to his chest, examining his new accessory warily even as he watched Gavorn repeat the process on Luna with half an eye. "It's an omni-tool. Aria refuses to type what she wants to say to you." There was a slight delay between when he spoke and when the device translated it into English for them, but they could understand him now! Wicked! It also explained why he'd had to type to them, but why they hadn't had to type back to him. "Someone will explain more about how they work after the meeting. For now, the fact that they do work should be good enough."

Harry nodded before turning to Luna as a random thought passed through his head. "I wonder if we all sound the same to turians or if our… turianese… has a British accent too?"

"Su said my Shanghainese had a distinct Devon accent. Never figured out whether she was taking the piss out of me or if she was serious. World's best Snap face, that girl." Luna brought her left hand up behind Harry's back as they followed Gavorn up the stairs, presumably petting Wednesday based on the low vibration that began emerging from the snorkack. Eventually they found themselves on an elevated platform that looked out over the rest of the club. A curved couch followed the edge of the platform, and sitting dead center in the middle of the couch was a purple-skinned space babe. Aria, presumably. "Hmm. Same question, roles reversed. Wonder what she's going to sound like to us. Do you think she'll be Irish? I do so love Irish girls…"

One of the darker purple lines running along Aria's brows twitched upward at Luna's words, but the purple-skinned woman remained otherwise impassive. After allowing Luna to natter on about Irish girls for almost a minute, she cleared her throat loudly, interrupting the blonde. "I'd heard that some humans can be uncivilized, but this is getting ridiculous. Gavorn, introduce these two so we're not here all day."

"Hmm. Canadian. It could be worse. At least she's not a Yank."

Stepping forward, Harry cut off both Gavorn's response and any further commentary from Luna. "Actually, we were expecting you to introduce yourself first. You are the hostess here, so to speak. But I suppose that's only how things are done back where we're from. Since they're clearly different here… if it will get things moving? My name is Harry Potter. This is my fiancée, Luna Lovegood. And you would be..?"

Aria's mouth opened and closed several times, and then her gaze flicked sideways to Gavorn. "Is he serious?"

"No, he's Harry. Sirius was his godfather." Luna let out a peal of laughter at the expression her joke received from Aria before making her way over to the couch and seating herself beside the woman. "Harry hates that joke too. He's more of the dry, sarcastic wit type. I'm a bit more flexible when it comes to my humor." Leaning in, Luna winked at Aria. "Flexible other ways, too."

As Aria likewise leaned in toward Luna, Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a radish earring, slipping the hook through the hole in his right earlobe. While it looked thoroughly ridiculous, he'd take the ribbing if it meant he could hold a conversation with Luna over a distance without shouting. Or in this case, listen in on her conversation. "Since you supposedly don't know who I am, little girl, I'm going to assume that you'll also claim you don't know the one rule of Omega. It's really quite simple: Don't. Fuck. With. Aria."

Displaying the trademark fearlessness that both drew Harry to Luna and made him thoroughly convinced that he'd end up a widower someday, the blonde giggled and planted a kiss on Aria's dark purple lips before disappearing with a pop, reappearing on the other side of the woman even as Aria brought her right hand up and released a rippling burst of blue energy. Passing through the space that Luna had just occupied, it slammed into the couch and… Harry grimaced, watching the surface warp and ripple before crumbling. Whether that was her species's version of magic or something else entirely, he had no idea, but he was reasonably sure that getting hit by one of those blasts would ruin a victim's day. Luna, unsurprisingly, was utterly nonplussed by the near miss, wrapping her arms around Aria's shoulders from behind. "If that's the only rule here, it would explain your mood. Everyone needs to have a little fun once in a while."

Aria let out a low growl at that, raising a glowing fist and throwing an awkward punch back over her left shoulder at Luna's head. Disapparating again, the blonde reappeared straddling the purple-skinned woman's lap and planted another kiss on her lips before apparating to safety once more. Blue energy crackled over Aria's skin wildly and then exploded outward, shredding even more of the couch and pushing Luna into a second apparition in rapid succession to escape the carnage. Their cat and mouse game continued for almost a minute, Aria wreaking increasing levels of havoc on her own domain as Luna stubbornly resisted her best efforts to hit her. At one point, his fiancée actually managed to create a friendly fire accident, apparating directly in front of a four-eyed being that Harry hadn't noticed at first just long enough to provoke Aria's wrath and popping away at the last second so a ball of blue energy passed through the space she'd just occupied, hitting it in the chest. Possibly him. The being looked reasonably male, but Harry didn't want to assume.

Finally, Harry decided that it was time to intervene if for no other reason that he was starting to worry that Aria might call in reinforcements, turning the women's little game of tag into a full-fledged battle with people who might actually be able to help them. "Luna, sweetie, please don't antagonize the woman in charge." Raising her hands in surrender, Luna apparated back to his side with a huff. "And weren't you the one who said we should keep certain things to ourselves? What happened to that idea?"

"You saw what that first spell of hers did. There was no way I was going to let it hit me. After that? Well, the kneazle was out of the bag anyway. Might as well have a bit of fun."

"If you hadn't kissed her, she wouldn't have tried to curse you."

"Semantics."

Harry sighed. He still wasn't used to it, being the calm and sensible one in the relationship. Turning his attention back to Aria, he bit his lip to avoid laughing at the sight of her standing in front of her utterly ruined couch, fists clenched as she panted and glared at the two of them. "At least I'm assuming you're in charge of Omega. Lieutenants usually don't react quite that badly to being challenged; they're used to having at least one person who's superior to them."

Continuing to glare at them, Aria fell back to perch on the edge of the sole remaining undamaged piece of couch, which just wide enough to hold her slender purple form. "I'm not 'in charge' of Omega, boy. I am Omega. I see everything, hear everything, and know everything that goes on aboard this station. Which means that I know neither of you were born here, nor did you arrive on the station through any of the docking bays. If you were smuggled aboard, that would mean you were deliberately trying to evade me and so you wouldn't be stupid enough to do something that gets my people's attention. Or… this." She spread her arms wide, gesturing to the wreckage that surrounded her. "Which then leaves me wondering among other things… who are Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood? How did they get here? What do they want? And should I kill them now in case what they want overlaps with what I have?"

"Should you kill us?" Harry arched an eyebrow at that one curiously before mimicking Aria's previous gesture with the one arm not currently wrapped around Luna's waist in an attempt to contain the blonde. "I would think the question running through your mind right now would be more along the lines of… can you kill us? Because you did a bloody terrible job of it with Luna, and I would class her more in the range of 'horny minx' than 'clear and imminent threat'."

Her look becoming almost petulant, Aria crossed her arms over her chest defensively as she continued to stare up at them. "I suppose it all depends on your perspective and what you think I mean by 'me' killing you. Can I kill you with my biotics? Clearly not. Or at least not with any of the tactics and techniques that I'm used to. Can I kill you by ordering one of the snipers up in the rafters to put a bullet through Lovegood's brain while she's in the middle of kissing me?" There was a brief pause and then she tilted her head to the side consideringly. "Would that actually kill one of you? It'd kill a human, but clearly you're not human."

Harry gave Luna's waist a warning squeeze to preempt whatever witticism she was about to offer in response. "If there's a doubt in your head that it would just piss us off rather than killing us, you're not going to order someone to take that shot. So I'd have to be daft to tell you one way or the other, wouldn't I?" After a moment's thought, Aria conceded that with a reluctant nod, allowing Harry to continue on to address the obvious fallacy that he'd noticed. "Also, for the record? We're both human. Entirely human, even, unlike a few others I know. Just… not quite like other humans."

"Uh… huh." Aria unwrapped one arm from across her chest so that she could gesture to the devastation inches to her right. "Because normal humans are completely capable of what Lovegood just did. And I'm a priestess of Athame." She let out a derisive snort before flicking her wrist, conjuring up the same blue energy around her hand that she'd used to try and defeat Luna. "She's clearly not a biotic, either, so don't even try that excuse."

A biotic? Is that what Aria's species called their witches? Wait, from the way Aria had phrased things, it almost seemed as if being a biotic was a potential explanation for Luna's abilities that she was dismissing. Which in turn meant that humans could be biotics. So then what were biotics? And what was Aria's power? So many questions, and there was no way Harry was going to get answers to any of them - or help with any of his myriad of problems - if he kept evading and playing games with this woman. For better or worse, they were stuck on Omega… whatever and wherever that may be… and if she wasn't the actual seat of power around here? She was doing a damn good job of convincing everyone around her otherwise.

Harry unwound his arm from around Luna as he stared at Aria consideringly, rubbing his hand over the wand holster hidden up his sleeve. Should he just be honest with her at this point? If the wizarding world was truly dead and gone, then there was no harm in it. If his people had survived this long but remained in hiding, maybe Aria was actually aware of them but not the particulars of their abilities, and so she thought she was doing her job by upholding whatever secrecy statutes existed in this time and place. Not to mention that anyone who ran a… whatever Omega was… probably had a fairly well tuned bullshit detector. It was highly likely that they wouldn't be able to get away with lying to her about anything significant. Being honest with Aria right out of the gate might even earn them a few brownie points, he reasoned, which they could sorely use after what Luna had pulled. "Since you don't seem to recognize our names, especially mine? I'm guessing that whenever and wherever we are, humans are still hiding certain things from the rest of the galaxy. And so the truth might be a bit unbelievable to you."

"Try me."

"We're a… I guess you'd call us a subspecies of humans. I think that's what we are; nobody had ever really looked into the science of what makes us magical, at least last I knew. The best way to explain it is that we're born with the ability to manipulate an energy field that we call 'magic'. I thought maybe you were something similar from your species based on what you did while fighting Luna, but I'm starting to realize that what you are is something completely different." Harry paused; Gavorn's reaction to his wand and spellwork when Aria used her powers openly and freely only reinforced that. "A long time ago, my people separated ourselves from the rest of humanity, hiding away in our own communities to keep from being persecuted by the rest of our kind for being different. Our own towns, our own schools, our own governments even. Although that might not be true anymore; our information is a little out of date because we're from 2006. We worked for a British magical government department that dealt in the strange and unusual. One of our coworkers accidentally activated some sort of gateway, and it threw us through time and space to… well, here. And now."

"…that's ludicrous."

"And yet here we are."

"Yes you are. Clear on the other side of the galactic core from Earth, and a hundred and seventy-five years in your future. I'd assume you were lying or insane - or possibly both - and have you shot where you stand for wasting my time…" Trailing off, Aria shrugged out of her white bolero jacket before blurring forward in a streak of blue light, reappearing in the middle of the platform on her feet as a wave of energy sent Harry, Luna, and Gavorn stumbling back. "Except that was the kanquess. It's one of many ways that my people can use our biotics. And as flashy and mysterious as it seems? Every last aspect of the kanquess - and every other biotic technique - is scientifically quantifiable and explainable. What your girlfriend does… that's nothing like anything we biotics can do. Which means there's definitely something different about you. And I want to know what."

Harry slowly and carefully drew his wand, holding it up for Aria to see. "Like I said, we're magical. I'm a wizard and Luna's a witch. Our kind has existed almost as long as humanity itself but as time went on, they gradually went from valuing or even revering our abilities to fearing them. Eventually, they began hunting us down and killing us. Doing the math… it's 2181? So we're only a decade away from the five hundredth anniversary of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy being enacted, which was when we officially separated ourselves from the rest of mankind." An idea came to mind as to how to further demonstrate their powers in a way that Aria hopefully wouldn't find disagreeable and so Harry flicked his wand gently, tossing a Mending Charm at the nearest section of damaged couch. The woman's eyes went wide as the spell quickly undid the damage that she'd caused, returning the area to its original - or perhaps even better - condition in a few seconds. "And now you see why."

"Yes. The rest of it. Fix it." Aria doubled back to retrieve her jacket before moving out of the way, watching intently as Harry moved in a slow circle, repairing the couch section by section. He could have done the entire thing with a single spell but for some reason, he felt that continuing to downplay the full extent of his abilities was a good idea. When he was done, Aria held out her jacket as well and arched a brow. "It's my favorite but it's starting to show its age. Maybe with your help I can get another two or three hundred years out of it." Harry blinked but obliged her; was she planning to hand it down to someone or was she saying that she would live that much longer? It made him wonder… he'd assumed her to be in her late thirties or perhaps her early forties, or maybe in the sixty to eighty range if she aged at half-speed the way more powerful magicals did. But if she was looking forward to another two or three centuries of life, how many years did she already have under her belt? Was there a polite way to ask? He knew that it was impolite to ask human women their age, did that apply to aliens too? Shrugging the jacket back on, Aria retook her seat on the couch and stared up at Harry curiously. "I feel like I could spend a decade or two doing nothing but talking to you, and the end I'd still have questions that I'd want answered."

While he and Luna would age slower than normal humans, as much as he wanted to work with this local power rather than against her? Harry wasn't exactly keen on sacrificing such a large portion of his life just to satisfy someone's curiosity. "Well then maybe we should stick to the most pressing questions for now? I'm sure there's a lot you want to know, mind you, but what do you actually need to know before you… let us go? Help us? I'm not entirely clear why we're even here, to be honest."

The corner of Aria's mouth quirked upward at that. "You're here because I want you here. I am Omega. My desires are your existence." Wow. And here he'd thought the Malfoys had an ego on them. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting any of this when Gavorn brought you to me. I thought he'd stumbled onto some particularly indiscrete AIS agents who would need to be stripped of some new toys and then escorted to the docking bay. You're something else entirely. Something new. Something powerful. Part of me wants you off my station and as far away from me as possible. A bigger part of me wants you under my thumb, because that power could be useful to me." Harry's hackles rose at that; after spending years being manipulated by Dumbledore, he had no intentions of serving another master - knowingly or unknowingly - ever again. "A third part of me wants to lock your girlfriend there in a room with this one matron who's been trying to seduce me for the last century, because I feel like it'd be hilarious to watch. But all the parts of me despise making uninformed decisions. So I'm going to give you two choices: one of you melds with me so that I can see your memories and decide whether or not you're telling the truth… or I have my people shoot you and toss the remains out an airlock just to be safe. What's it going to be?"


End file.
